Then and Now

[emanday]

Jack has just worked some magic for me again and emailed me with later details about my rellies.

I just wanted to ask how many others have started to want to know about the rellies who are descended from the same roots, and may be "whatever level" cousins still around today?

Because of Jack, I know that there are likely to be many rellies out there I am related to as closely as via my Great Grandparents offspring, many of whom I had no previous knowledge of.

One comment I made to Jack was the feeling of having a great privilege in being able to gather together (with lots of help), and become "keeper" of so much of my family history.

Now, am I wrong in my feeling that it is up to me to discover where "we" all are now? And, when I get it all together, should I let them all know what I know?

'Scuse the ramble, but I'd really value your comments on what I've just "rambled".

[Jean Jeanie]

Hi Mary

I'm sure this has been discussed before. Nevertheless here's my feelings.

Some people are quite happy to share their information with other members of their new found families. Others feel that if they have done all the work and spent all the money, they want to keep it to themselves.

Some like to drip feed bits and pieces to other folks.

It really depends on how you feel about this yourself.

Me, I like to share what I can with people I have come to trust. i.e. if others have done some research, I feel honoured to share other details with them. I would think twice about sharing what I had with someone who has not bothered to do anything themsleves.

Just tonight I have been in touch with a young girl of 17. My gggg grandparents are her gggggg grandparents. She has done a lot of work on her tree and I am happy to send her details of other members of our shared family that she knows nothing about (small branches and twigs!)

Do what you think is best and what makes you happy

Best wishes
Jean

[LesleyB]

Hi Mary
Over the years I've been in touch with many distant cousins - some you communicate with for a while & swap info then gently drift apart, others it is a more lasting relationship. It is a strange feeling to meet with 4th cousins or third cousins several times removed - you are related, but so distantly that you can count the genes you have in common in 64ths, 128ths or whatever!! You may have very little in common, but what you do have in common runs deeper than a few likes and dislikes - it is something which you can not quite explain... a continuity, a travel through time, a connection from a couple of hundred years ago...

However, what never ceases to amaze me are the photographs - those sent from distant relatives, branches who you might not have discovered had you not been researching, and how those photographs bring those people from the past back from obscurity - they are no longer just names and dates in your tree but real people with lives, concerns and almost always that little something which you recognise or can relate to or which you are happy to take on board as being part of your wider tapestry. All part of the journey.

Best wishes
Lesley

[SarahND]

Beautifully said, Lesley! I would agree and add that I have felt the connection also. What's interesting to me is that I feel a special connection with those who are the same generation as I am from a particular ancestor. For example, I have found a number of hitherto unknown half first cousins, who are all about the age of my mother (her father was 55 when she was born and had had another family early on). I feel a closer connection with them than I do with their children, who are my age.
Following side lines down to living people has also found priceless photographs, including a stunning ambrotype of my gg grandfather Adam Stewart (1795-1870) mouldering in the basement of a third cousin.
I'd say, go for it Mary!
All the best,
Sarah

[emanday]

Thank you all for your very insightful thoughts.

I think one of the things that has surprised, or actually shocked me, is that some of the surnames Jack has added to my family knowledge I had never "connected to" as rellies!

I've spoken to a couple of cousins about this and they, like me, had always thought the people with these surnames were no more than friends of the family, but close enough to be regulars at bigger weddings and the like. They'd never known they were rellies either! This, of course, begs the question - did they know they were part of our family or was the memory of the connection lost somehow as older members passed away?

Just as an example. one lady at my wedding in the early 70's was invited, on my mother's insistance, because she had been a "great friend" to my grandmother. Maybe she was, but she was also her 2nd cousin!

[maggie]

hello
i agree with you Sarah
it was Beautifully said Lesley ,I wish i could be so elequent with words .
I myself am more than happy to give what i have on my ancestors to anyone that i find with a connection .I have found quite a few far flung cousins that i have been able to give information to some of it on no small part thanks to TS members and have now developed some email friendships and not just genealogy based .I have met some in person too and that was great.
I do know what the drip feeding method is since my other half uses that method much to my irritation But each to their own as they say
Mary i too feel priviledged to be the "keeper" of the family knowledge to me the ancestors are more than names on bits of paper and have become quite protective of them some of them didn't lead very easy lives and i'm facinated by what their decendants made of theirs like from being a servant to having servants and the like.
kind regards
maggie

[Russell]

Hi Mary

What has fascinated me is the different responses you can recieve from relatives when you say you are working on the family tree.
Some are enthusiastic, some vaguely interested, some are totally indifferent and some can be quite forcible in their view that 'things like that' should not be investigated at all
Having met with all of these responses I am learning (slowly since I like to chatter!) that it is best to avoid the topic altogether with the last two groups.
On the other hand, when working on-line, if someone comes on who may, or may not, be relative I am more than happy to give information on a generation or two so they can check for links. Where a positive connection has been made I am delighted to share with them knowing they still have other family lines to pursue
Where there are close links we have kept in touch and exchanged any information we have managed to add + exchanged Christmas cards and telephone calls. Oddly though none have developed into what I would call 'family' bonds. Friendship, yes but feeling of actual family - No!

I often feel I have closer bonds to the many TS contributors since we all share a common infatuation.

Russell

[emanday]

Right enough, Russell, I've experienced the same differing responses as well! I have managed to "convert" a couple of the mildly interested into nuts like us, and I've even got a disinterested one to the point where he does now ask if I've got anything new!

Only one person has told me that I am "digging up things that are best kept in the past and never mentioned" but I believe that is only because of one particular series of events I discovered that she took umbrage at! Up to that point she was simply disinterested!

When I do come across potential connections, like the few I've found on GR, I do like to provide them with information if they ask. However, after one of them gratefully accepted a family link he'd never been able to find, he then refused to reciprocate! Hasn't stopped me helping others, but I'm still from that experience.

[joette]

I feel like the keeper of the Grail & repository of the family story.
My Mum is interested & has done some research & if her health was better
would do more,ditto my Aunt.I am trying to interest the next generation but their eyes glaze over.I was always interested in family stories but then I am just plain nosey!
I have "met" other rellies researching various lines through Ancestry & GR.Some have "hit & run" & those I have shared what I have on their lines.Others have been very generous in what they shared-sometimes overwhelmingly so.They have clarified,rectified mistakes & I applaud their genorosity.
Re photos a recent family "cousin" find on GR sent me a photo of my GGreat-Aunt & Uncle which I had no recollection of seeing before but instantly recognised the family resemblance.On a visit home going through a bag of "stuff" being disposed off from an old toy cupboard I found a photo tucked in an old notebook of mine-same couple,same location different pose! I had no recollection of this photo & if I had found it without the prior contact would have been hard pushed to place them despite the resemblance.

[emanday]

One of my GR contacts isn't, at it turned out, researching the same non-Scottish line as I was. However, she very generously let me have details from some of her "mistakes" just in case they were mine! Most weren't, but a couple of them did fill gaps, and I thought it brilliant of her to share what she had with me.